The legislature is closed today because of snow otherwise Sen. Lois Tochtrop[1] would be celebrating her 72nd birthday with 99 friends, most of them wearing orange in honor of the Denver Broncos[2] playing in the Super Bowl on Sunday.

Tochtrop – affectionately known as Truckstop or Backstop –[3] is the longest serving state legislator. The Adams County Democrat started her first session in 1999, the year the Broncos won their second Super Bowl. Her Democratic colleague, Sen. Mike Johnston[4] of Denver, paid homage to her this week, noting no other lawmaker has served in the same year that the Broncos won a Super Bowl.

Tochtrop, a die-hard Broncos fan, said the 1998 win over the Green Bay Packers, a game the Broncos were expected to lose, was more exciting than the victory over the Atlanta Falcons in 1999, her first year in the House.

She recalled campaigning in 1998 with fellow Adams County Democrat Alice Nichol[7], who was running for the state Senate. Also on the ballot that year, 4A, a measure to use tax money for a new football stadium. The Broncos has already won one Super Bowl and were 9-0 by election day the following year. Tochtrop said one voter they talked to was all excited about putting up yard signs until the voter realized the signs for were Nichol and Tochtrop, not the stadium.